katabasis | [psl] dos rowdy boys

Two feet back on the floor, straightening up, there is a sidelong look tossed Flint's way for that half-laugh in the midst of arranging the waistband of his pants without bothering with the belt still set on the table. As if either of them can have said to comported themselves with any dignity in the past several minutes, it says, but doesn't rankle much more than that.

He does take that cup, though, inspecting the fine debris inside of chalk dust and the quill's molting, blowing at it to loosen before he shakes it emptier. "Why?" is barely chased with a glance. Somewhat innocently thoughtless for that, no further looks to sharpen the prod.

Instead, Marcus makes for the cabinet, given to inspecting the selection before he will opt for the one with the lowest line, taking it to mean it's a favourite.

Has he met most of the members of this company?, prompts the sideways look that dogs Marcus' heels.

He doesn't say that. Instead, he draws a knee up and makes to untangle the mess of trousers about the tops of his gaiters. Finding the seams of both layers and the button front, yanking them round and encouraging the fabric back up over his knees.

"I've a number of books to see to," he says. When he slips from the edge of the table, it's to draw the waist of both trousers and drawers into place though he bothers only to lace the inside layers and with a single perfunctory button on the other.

He doesn't actually remove himself fully from the table either—propped there with his boots on the ground and the hem of his untucked shirt long across the waist. Instead he circles one of his wrists with his other hand, an unconscious testing of the ache in it, as his attention follows Marcus. Marks the chosen bottle (some dark, north Antivan liquor that's sweet and panting bite both—an acquired taste typically acquired by those without much to begin with). Grunts a low note of approval.

"I'll bear that in mind."

The solitary glass is also taken, pinched between fingers with the cup of pewter, other hand wrangling the liquor bottle by the throat. Judges where Flint has set himself in his state of redress, scopes the other available corners of the room, and, naturally, the way none of it is arranged to permit much in the way of company, as suggested.

Very well. Marcus meanders on back, placing these objects down. Near without being immediately oppressive, only familiar, as he goes to distribute two fair helpings. Into the crystal, first, which is set down for Flint to take; the pewter he gives one last wiping out with the edge of his sleeve before filling it.

"Make account for your book reading," he continues, some small frond of amusement present once again. "And my early morning."

Surely there's a comfortable space that can be made, on the odd evening.

There is that chair near the big empty fireplace, and the one at the desk might be drawn from behind it and propped conveniently closer. Whether it makes for a comfortable seat is another question, but technically speaking—

'Mm,' Flint hums, that low sound of acknowledgement that isn't agreement or disagreement but tinted with some shade of humoring him (or maybe just amusement). Then he takes up the glass and gratefully swallows down the first finger of liquor.

The sweet bite of it isn't particularly good for relieving thirst, but also yes it is. Or will be, given a few more swallows and a little time. It lays there sharp on the tongue as his attention lays over back to the table, free hand idly making to return some order back to the papers scattered by impulse. And here is Marcus' leather bound book, drawn back toward them from where it's been so unceremoniously discarded.

"I've a proposal for you," he says after a moment nursing the glass, flipping the book carelessly back open. Less studying its contents and more just flicking through the pages.

The pages bound into the leather by twine are a mismatch in quality, mostly poor, and a riot of different hands, more chaos than orderly faded leather would have suggested. Marcus' neat penmanship takes up the majority of scheduling and order, but then other scratched in notations like 'intercepted spider at main gate, escorted off premises, all is well' that do not belong to him. They have, at least, been allowed to stay, or have yet to be corrected.

Marcus glances to the book as a matter of instinct, movement at the corner of his eye. When Flint does not rustle the pages over to somewhere specific, his focus breaks off again, lifting his cup to taste from. Less thirstily, but glad for the bite of it anyway.

"Mm?"

Flipped pages lead eventually to the end of the log; he turns a few back, referring to Marcus' cursed rota list although it warrants only a cursory glance. Something, apparently, to be occupy with his hand and the line of his eyes and only a very marginal scrap of attention.

In a half hour, the daylight coming in through those windows will have turned smoky red as the sun angles toward setting. The dinner hour will come and go, and in the morning there will be a block of meetings in that room across the hall, and in the training yard, and with the various projects. If he were bright, he would make use of these hours to make ready for those things.

So, in that spirit:

"I've work to do and you've some to reassemble." A thumb, tapping that open page. "I suggest we take it into that room, and avail ourselves of a little more of that bottle while we're at it. By the time I've finished,"—or sobered, or fallen prey to a nap in the apartment's bed—"I might have another go left in me."

Reasonable. A glance, flicking in Marcus' direction.

"We can discuss the ballista," he adds.

By the time Flint's plans have encompassed drinking more of this Antivan liquor, a corner of Marcus' mouth turns up, now scanning a proper look back at that book. Turns enough to go and angle it towards himself as if considering it alongside this proposal.

"I enjoyed discussing the ballista," he says, agreeably, gently folding the book back closed and scraping it nearer to himself.

Which also means he no longer has any hands available, nullifying the dim impulse he feels to snag Flint's shirt and tug him in closer, but it doesn't feel like a total loss when the prospect of a comfortable working space, rum-tinged and quiet, and the possibility of another go are right there. He takes his weight off the table where he'd been leaning his hip against it, just slightly.

"Alright," more seriously.

Good, seems to be the implication of Flint's brow. Decided, he knocks back the rest of his glass—the rum isn't really so quality to regret doing so—, turns it in the hand and hooks it over the mouth of the bottle with a click of glass on glass to make these things easier to carry off together.

Migrating from the front offices to the adjacent apartment is a matter of collecting papers and writing implements, one of the crumpled charts already laid out table and a heavier rolled map from the cabinet. There is no desk in the side room, and only the single armchair which Flint has no intention of sitting in. Instead, all these papers are poured into the bed itself and the bottle finds a new home on the candle cluttered side table. Rather than follow directly in after them, Flint leans down. With a rasp of weight over the heavy rug, a lap desk is drawn out from under the bed.

Possibly this isn't the first time he's done paperwork in bed with a bottle for company.

Company company, however— Should Marcus avail himself of the other side of the mattress, he would find it populated by one of those aforementioned books evidently laid aside at some point and forgotten under the covers.

Marcus is slower to acclimate by virtue of having less to do and following cues; after one detour to collect his coat up off the floor and drape it over that armchair, he dogs Flint's steps into the attached apartment. Moves around to the other side of the mattress, watches as implements are cast down onto the mattress and the little desk is retrieved. The familiarity of it all, where clearly this is an arrangement Flint has made of himself in private many times over, is oddly entrancing to witness.

But not so much that witness is all he does. Marcus first tips back his remaining mouthful of rum and sets the glass down on the other side table for the moment, and moves to kneel onto the mattress—and stops, fishing out the hard rectangular shape he immediately encounters. One of his competitors, apparently.

Marcus twists the book around to make note of spine and cover, keeping a hold of it as he goes to sit down and up against the headboard, other hand absently pushing the pillow there into a more agreeable position. He is liable to finish his work before Flint does, by the looks of things; maybe he will need the extra reading.

While there, he also steals a pencil.

Hopefully Marcus can stomach the prospect of Nevarran Steel Age military philosophy; the volume in question is a dusty reprint of a likely far more precious source text, the name of the author one of those brisk Nevarran names oft associated with some quippy aphorism evoked by the sort of people who take pleasure in sounding clever from their comfortable chairs near warm fires. Presumably, there is some value in the actual text in context; James Flint spends relatively little time opining from armchairs. Or he is reading it because it's occasionally pleasant to devour trite garbage and complain about how it tastes going down.

It's discovery earns a flicking glance, not really apologetic although maybe a very marginal degree sheepish for its discovery. Stupid, he thinks, and then climbs onto the bed with his boots still on.

As for the rest— well, what of it? Why should he spend any time thinking to examine Marcus with his leather bound book sat up against the headboard, or be particularly conscious over the relative easiness of it? In a few hours, when he can get his cock up again, they'll clear all of this away and resume fucking around. Less than that, maybe, if Marcus can be keen and ready and wants to be touched.

So instead of torturing this arrangement with further consideration, he situates the lap desk between their hips as a sort of convenient tray onto which the bottle might be migrated. Pours himself another drink and offers the same in the direction of Marcus' cup.

"It's going on the wall north of the gate." The ballista, obviously. Not asking for an opinion on the placement either. "We'll knock out a portion of the battlement and shift the stone to assemble a guard house."

There's no skepticism or particular judgment for the quality of the book he's inspecting when Flint glances over. A flicker of interest only dulled by his assessment that this appears to him as a higher calibre of literature than he normally indulges in, actually, where his library tends to be a rotation of cheap pamphlets, but opts to set it down in reach for later anyway.

Proffers his cup on cue, feeling some curl of contentment that remains even as conversation steers practical. Marcus takes a passing, shallow sip before setting the cup back down on the desk.

"Simple enough," he says, another way of stating he can see to the arrangements of the thing. "Is this the work you're having Barrow and Adjei seeing to or are you leaving stone-shifting to the rest of us?" Barrow may be a Templar and Adjei a friend, but they've the backs for this sort of thing.

He begins working loose the page in need of redoing. "It ought to be accounted for in our defense protocols, the ballista. What's its range?"

The question of Barrow and Adjei gets a low Mm in answer, something vaugely affirmative across the lip of his glass. While it's clearly his habit to make brisk work of any cup—no shallow sips here—, he sets the glass aside with half its measure or so left in it easily enough.

"Reliably?" The tie around the rolled chart is stripped, the page opened across his lap. "Two cable lengths, part under. They're no Qun cannon."

Lest this particular bit of nautical bullshit be impenetrable, the unrolled page which Flint shifts in between them appears to be a chart of the Kirkwall harbor, the Gallows, and the various depth measurements of the surrounding channel. A pencil from the collection (they will have to be mindful of clearing those out later, he thinks) is used to mark out a rough arc extending from what is an approximation of the aforementioned position on the wall.

The producing of a chart ahead of the answer stops any twinge of complaint for the impenetrable nautical bullshit, Marcus instead steering his attention to pencil marks. He can see the way having some means of long range offense would likewise play a part in covering on-ground evacuations, but consideration for defensive tactics is stowed, for now, until after stones have been pried loose and reoriented.

He says 'mm', instead, as a marker of thinking, and then, "We can drill the non-riders, to begin with," he proposes, returning his focus to his book. "The griffons will come into play in event of an attack like that."

Man loves a drill. And also: there is no attempt being made to keep up with Flint's longer slaking sips of his liquor. The quality of the drink is less of an issue so much as he knows better about himself than to try. The next sip is likewise measured, with that first helping already pleasantly warm in his blood.

"Fair enough," he grunts, tucking the snub of pencil into the crook of his thumb. "You'll have time enough to arrange for it."

It will take time to shift the stone, and to haul one of the ballistas from the Walrus ashore, and to see it swayed up into its new home. Days, optimistically. Weeks, more likely given the rate at which Riftwatch operates and the scattering nature of their work.

He neglects to fetch up the glass again. Instead, Flint draws the harbor chart back into his lap and goes feeling around in his assembled pile of work to extract a report page—turns it over to its partially blank back and prepares to take a few notes in the open space available to him.

No answer from Marcus, which can be taken as an affirmative. The sound of parchment slithered free of its bindings, and set down on the covelet next to him for reference. From there, the scratch of pencil as he begins about the task of reconstituting the roster over the span of time he can imagine this construction taking.

He finishes his cup out of negligent habit, setting it back down on the desk before follows some shuffling that produces his cigarette case from a back pocket. Soon, the presence of smoke wends its way through quiet room, which mingles nicely in the system with sweet rum and the increasingly more distant after effects of a satisfying fuck.

And, also, this companionableness and this welcome that doesn't feel as delicate as it could. He has plenty of times felt thrilled or aroused or satisfied or tentatively affectionate while in Flint's company, but this settles thicker and simpler in the stomach, in his veins.

"I don't suppose you'd like to take a shift or two," Marcus murmurs, after he's made some work on cigarette and page both.

"Nope." He has moved on from the harbor chart, having jotted down a handful of quick notations on the back of the not quite scrap paper and now rolling them back up together now to rebind the pair with the same cord. He doesn't look up and over from this task, or as he gathers up the thick stack of papers he's brought with him and settles back against the pillow and slab of headboard available to him. But good try, says the brief sideways look that does eventually slide in Marcus' direction once he's propped there.

(This—shifting low against the headboard, not quite lying down and not quite sitting either—is a mistake if he actually wants to get any of this work done. That warm heaviness of having been on his back may have slackened, but the touch of the rum promises to take some of the sharp edges out of the world in its stead, and he can feel himself being too comfortable. Too satisfied. Too familiar.

Depending on the length of these reports, give him three or four of them before these things will creep up on him and tempt him into a nap. Which is fine. Semi-inevitable. Only bad news for the stack of papers, and Marcus if he can't contrive to keep himself entertained.)

"I don't think it would be beneficial," he says, checking the length of this top set of papers and promptly shuffling them to the bottom the moment he marks who's written it.

"Alright."

Fine, says his tone, though not with real complaint. He hadn't paused in his reordering of names and times and days to ask it, but still adds, "It's not so bad, in the summer. And it's quiet. Too spread thin for any conversations to last very long."

Not so settled that Marcus is a nap-risk, he is nevertheless comfortably settled into the pillow behind him. Most of his work is done at his desk in the sparse office he's been allotted, straight backed and semi-hurried, so this is a more preferable mode of doing things. Of course, there is no universe he'd allow his paperwork into his personal quarters, even if it was appended to his office.

Flicks some ash, wills it to vanish with embers that wink out of existence with a flicker of thought.

No, not so settled, because restlessness will start to nip at his heels. A natural response to being sat with paper and pen, never mind the warm body of a person scarcely a foot from him. That he falls quiet again and commits himself to his work means that it makes for a good motivation.

It would be simple, reasonable even, to simply let the non-question (justification, maybe) stand. They agree; he won't be taking a shift. No, it probably isn't even so bad—particularly not in the summer when it's pleasantly hot and the air is thick in a way that suits him even in his heaviest clothes. Leave it, Flint thinks, and read your own papers. That's an important part of this arrangement he'd proposed to Marcus—an efficient way to seeing that they both do what needs doing, and are conveniently to hand when that's finished. It would be annoying to part ways for a few hours and then try to smuggle Marcus back into his rooms later in the evening.

So he does that second thing. Keeps his eyeballs on his own work.

But also, from his mostly reclined position and without tearing his eyes from the literal scrap of paper he's currently reviewing, says, "It's better for the company if they understand that there is a difference between myself and them."

The wording catches at him, even if it doesn't pause Marcus from roughing out some extra lines to write by. Not if they believe, for instance, but an understanding. Not the acceptance of some myth, but the shared agreement of a truth. He is not what he would describe to be well-read (at least, for a mage) but there is a certain natural literacy for discourse of a particular nature.

Enough to notice, anyway. He draws a long, mostly straight line across parchment, to be properly inked in later. Conscious, all at once, of straddling some delicate border. That it would be easy for him to be tipped over one side of it.

Marcus allows a pause to settle long enough before he says, "I suppose that means we won't be fucking over any of my furniture," which doesn't sound very put out. Ostensibly, Darras could choose to one day make use of the desk assigned him at exactly the wrong time.

Beside him (more or less), Flint snorts. A laugh; not entirely kind, although maybe the bite is for the imagined circumstances and not for Marcus' fingertips.

"I'm not sure we'd both fit in your bed."

The scrap report is laid aside. Something to be looked at more closely, perhaps, or that requires filing separate from the rest. If Flint's attention flicks sideways, it's because the next page has reminded him of his glass on the lap desk and the necessity of its contents and has prompted its retrieval.

The 'tsk' sound he makes is a little similar to the mild correction Marcus might make at Monster nibbling for his boot laces or hair tie, not looking up from his book.

"How spoiled we've gotten, all of a sudden."

He's sure that at least one of the rooms they'd tried had a vermin problem, having found some spots on himself the next day, to say nothing of that first scrap of bedroll in the muddy foothills that first time. But if this a point Marcus means to press, it doesn't sound like one.

A glance aside for the order of report, glass, and he takes that cue to add a small splash of rum back to his emptied vessel, cigarette trapped close between knuckles. "Enjoying yourself?" of the reports.

Or the state of the mattress to be found outside the central tower is so dire that they falls short of sweaty let rooms in Kirkwall.

A foot or so away, Flint hums a low note of acknowledgement if not assent. Of course. Paperwork is among his favorite past times and he takes great pleasure in deciphering the chicken scratch of their colleagues. It would be easier to simply have the reports done in person, spoken to his face. If that were to cause problems for a successor should he die unceremoniously and suddenly in the battlefield sounds like not his problem.

But what he says, eventually, after he has nipped down a little more rum is— "More than is usual."

Which is true. In this season and with all his clothes on, if not done, the bed is a little overwarm. But it's wildly preferable to the camping cot and the dry Anderfels air, to say nothing of the encroaching hum if the liquor running through him or the little worked ache in his thighs. And if he is mindful not to look at it too directly or closely, there is that little bright ember of pleasure still hiding behind the ribs. Satisfaction. Not with the fucking or the booze. More—

He turns a page. Smooths the paper. Scans the contents without really reading more than every fifth word. Marcus Rowntree ought to laugh more. Just the thought of that brief fleck of it, not veiled in some exhale or pressed into a slanted mouth, rises unbidden to fit warm at the back of Flint's neck where it's set against the pillow.

"You?"

It's an unexpected answer, in that he'd anticipated some kind of sarcastic nipping remark or maybe a complaint for whatever had compelled him to take back up his glass—the subject or the handwriting or the writer. But the news that it is enjoyable, to some degree, has that pleasantness Marcus had settled into simmer up again at the potential that it's a shared thing.

It also means he doesn't want to give a sarcastic nipping remark either, now, when Flint turns the question back to him. So Marcus says, "Aye," he's enjoying himself, jotting down names and entertaining a bias for relegating Keen and the others like him to the early morning hours, while managing to be more even-handed with his own evenings, and he wonders if Flint makes note of those, too, if his review during meetings and in-between extends further than making certain the thing has been done.

And sense-memory still present and sharp beneath the skin, from whiskery kisses to muscle flexing beneath his hands made hard with pressure, the warm, tight pull of mouth around knuckle and the bucking of thighs on either side of him. That's not nothing, and liable to restart something at any provocation.

All fairly tertiary to having claimed this spot in this room at all, even if it's a matter of convenience. He doesn't imagine Flint is only chiefly motivated by convenience.

He turns a page, once his pencil finds the end of a column, and then smears his cigarette done into his case. "Did you wish to check this?"

"I'm sure it's fine," he says, draining his glass. Setting it, empty, onto the lap desk and shifting the page he's trying to read slightly farther from his nose in the hopes that a longer vantage might render the slanting handwriting more decipherable.

If there is something telling in so casually divesting of this thing that had served to summon Marcus to the division office to begin with, it doesn't occur to him. For somewhere in the jumble of the page, there is something of enough value that Flint goes to the trouble of folding one of the corners so as to remember to return to it and maybe it in combination with the settling warmth of the liquor and the casual heat at the back of his neck is plenty sufficient to sway his attention from his own defense.

This answer is absorbed without comment, and an uninterrupted scratching of pencil over parchment. A little bit of time passes, and perhaps Flint has made some headway in both adjusting his eyes to the slanting letters sketched fast onto paper as well as progress through the content itself. From the other side of the bed, the occasional click of glass set back down, the rustle of pages.

Then the movement of shuffling everything back into order in the leather binding. Marcus doesn't trouble himself in searching through Flint's supplies for ink to commit his work, as surely that's something he can fuss with tomorrow.

No, rather, he sets the book aside with a throat-clearing sound. The light has changed slightly, the sun dipping lower in the sky to slant it strange and slightly more golden through the windows. Marcus eases out from his slouch, hooks a leg in tighter and starts working at his own boot lacings.

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please make up and describe another book to me

every flint thread just a ruse to indulge in describing another made up book

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